


Nighttime Fears

by Cole_Ramsey



Series: Project HYBRID [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Torture of Minors, Late Night Conversations, Nightmares, ugly crying, vague mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 16:38:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3943924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cole_Ramsey/pseuds/Cole_Ramsey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eva has a nightmare, Sonya makes hot chocolate. They don't talk about it. Not with words</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nighttime Fears

_“Come out little wolf” the woman says in a sing-song voice, heels clicking on the tiled floor with each step. “Where are you hiding?”_

_The little girl does her best to keep quiet, to not give herself away. She wants to run, is fighting every instinct she has in order to keep still and hidden. She knows if she runs, she’ll be caught in seconds, but if she stays here she’ll be caught too. It’s only a matter of time._

_She presses herself against the back wall of the closet she’s hiding in as the woman gets closer, counting the seconds in her head until the woman is right in front of the door. Not for the first time, the girl wishes she could use her nose to tell her how far the women is, but she can’t smell anything over all the chemicals they use. Whether used in their experiments, or to clean and sterilize afterwards, it doesn't matter; the result is the same._

_The woman stops right in front of the door, the girl can see the soles of her heels through the gap at the bottom of the door. All she’d have to do was turn around and open the door and – The girl puts both hands over her mouth to keep from screaming, hardly daring to breathe, but the woman walks past her hiding place without even bothering to open the door and look inside._

_The girl starts breathing again, but does not move. She knows she’s not safe. Not yet. Eventually, slowly, the girl makes her way to the door. Opening it a crack, the girl looks in every direction before taking a hesitant step out of her hiding spot. The woman is nowhere to be seen. The door leading out to the main part of the Facility is twenty steps away, but there’s no cover from here to there, leaving her vulnerable. Biting her lip, the girl decides to risk it. Either way will bring pain, but she might be able to delay it for a while._

_She’s halfway when she feels something grab her wrist tight enough to leave bruises. “There you are. Found you.” The woman says and the girl starts to struggle, to cry and scream, even as she’s dragged away. No! She wasn’t going to go through this again!_

_“…Didn’t do as I instructed…” the woman was saying and the girl’s whole body shook._

_“No, please…I promise I’ll do better next time -”_

_The woman gives her an icy glare, a predator’s smile on her lips. “But surely you_ want _to learn how to fly. You do, don’t you, Subject Eleven?”_

Eva wakes with a scream in throat and fear clawing at her heart.

“Can’t sleep?”

Eva jumps, head whipping to the side and heart racing. She looks wide eyed at Sonya who is watching her curiously. The other girl is curled up on the couch with Duo, the two of them a tangle of limbs.

Eva jerks her head in a negative, still not trusting herself to speak and not start screaming. Sonya nods, understanding in her eyes.

She nudges Duo awake. “Go cuddle with your boyfriend.” She tells him as she untangles herself from him. The white haired boy blinks at her in tired confusion and then glances between her and Eva, his mouth forming a small ‘o’ in understanding.

Pushing himself up, Duo presses a kiss to Sonya’s cheek, and then moves the few steps over to where the others are all passed out on the floor in a nest of blankets and pillows. He leans down and kisses Eva’s cheek as he passes her, murmuring a sleepy “feel better” before stepping over Ash – who is on their back, sprawled out like a starfish – and lying down next to Ace.

Sonya stands up and silently holds out her hand. Eva takes it and pulls herself up off the floor. Her hands are shaking.

As they make their way upstairs, Eva closes her mental doors to everyone but Sonya. She doesn’t want to wake them in case she projects something she shouldn’t by accident. Actually, she’s surprised no one else _did_ wake up, connected as they all are, but she’s grateful for it. She doesn’t think she could handle everyone fussing over her and crowding her right now.

“This might hurt.” Sonya warns as they get to the kitchen, her free hand groping the wall for the light switch.

Eva shuts her eyes just as Sonya makes a small noise of success at finding it, and waits a few seconds before opening her them again. She has to blink a few times as they adjust to the light, but it doesn’t burn like they would have if she’d had her eyes open when Sonya had turned on the lights.

“Go sit.” Sonya tells her and Eva does.

She let’s go of Sonya’s hand and moves on automatic to the table. She pulls out a chair and falls gratefully into it as Sonya goes to the counter and grabs their electric kettle. Eva watches as the other girl as she checks the water level, making a disgruntled noise before moving to the sink to fill it.

Her bright copper coloured hair almost looks like fire under the lights, Eva thinks, and starts laughing. But it comes out sounding more like a strangled sob than a laugh so she stops.

Sonya, in the middle of grabbing two mugs from the cupboard, turns her head to glance at her curiously and Eva shakes her head, dark brown hair flopping into her eyes. It’s not important. Just a random thought that is funnier than it should be.

The other girl raises an eyebrow at her, but shrugs and goes back to what she was doing. While reaching for the mugs, the bottom of the tank top she wore to bed has rode up, exposing a small strip of the skin of her back and a few of the many scars that litter it.

Eva watches as Sonya takes the kettle and puts it on its base, flicking it on, before moving to the pantry and then she looks away. Resting her forehead against the cool tabletop, she stars at her lap. Almost like she’s in a trance, she brings her hands to either side of her head, open palms pressing against the edge of the table, fingers curling and uncurling around it. Her eyes focusing on a loose thread on her pyjama pants, Eva falls into a rhythm.

Inhale (fingers grip at the table)

_One. Two. Three_

Exhale (release)

_Four. Five. Six._

Inhale (grip)

_One. Two. Three_

Exhale (release)

_Four. Five. Six._

Inhale…

There’s a small clink of ceramic against wood and Eva jolts back to reality, head snapping up as Sonya, voice soft but firm, says “Drink this,” and the other girl pulls out the chair next to her, falling gracefully into it, her long legs stretched out, another steaming mug in front of her.

“Drink.” The redhead says again when Eva makes no move to take the mug in front of her, instead she’s too busy staring wide eyed in surprise at the other girl. She hadn’t even heard the kettle click off. Snapping out of it, Eva shakes her head and reaches for the dark blue mug with suns, moons and stars on the side, fingers curling hesitantly around the handle. They have regular plain mugs for guests, but they all have their own 'special' mug that no one else ever uses and this one is hers.

Bringing it closer, Eva sniffs at the contents – more out of curiosity about what’s in it than out of any real fear that it’s poisoned. Poison is more her gig then it is Sonya’s – and she’s pleasantly surprised to discover that it’s hot chocolate. She blows over the rim, watches the steam billow away, before taking a small sip, careful not to burn her tongue. She’s not heat and fire proof like the girl sitting next to her is. Heat can still hurt her like she’s a normal person.

Even though she’s not.

As that thought works its way through her brain, the brunette lets out another half-laugh, half-sob that sounds like she’s choking and the world goes blurry as her eyes fill with tears. She feels more than sees Sonya grab the mug at the top and pull it gently from her hands and place it back on the table.

Eva realizes her hands are shaking again.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She shakes her head and closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath.

Inhale

_One. Two. Three_

Exhale

_Four. Five. Six._

She does this a few more times (six times, always six), opens her eyes and wipes away the tears. Sonya is staring intently at her mug – it’s orange and looks like a fox – her right index finger trailing around the rim.

Nightmares are a common occurrence in this house – at least one of them will have one once a week – and it’s not uncommon to not talk about them if it’s a particularly nasty one. They all know what the nightmares are about anyway, they don’t need details. Sometimes it’s more comforting to sit in silence with someone - someone you know won’t judge you, who won’t look at you with pity, someone with similar experiences – then talking about it could ever be.

“Do you need…?” Sonya jerks her head toward the cupboard where they keep all the various medications that they take on any given day. She’s talking about the pain killers specifically, because sometimes after a nightmare old scars will ache with fresh hurt; phantom pains from long ago torture.

Eva thinks about it and gives a short nod. Some of the larger scars on her back and arms are starting to burn. She could use a few pain killers.

Sonya nods and gets up. Her movement pushes her chair back, its legs scraping loudly across the floor. Crossing the room, she pulls open the cupboard and searches through it for a few seconds, looking for the right ones, before pulling out two pill bottles. She places them on the counter by the sink and then opens another cupboard, and pulls out two small glasses that she fills with cold tap water. Tucking the pill bottles against her side, keeping them in place with her arm, Sonya takes a glass in each hand and walks back to the table.

Placing the glasses down, Sonya grabs the bottles, double checking the names on the prescription labels, before putting one down on the table. Popping the lid off, she pours out two into her palm and offers them to Eva who takes them.

Taking a sip of water, Eva tosses the pills into her mouth and tilts her head back, swallowing them in one fluid motion as she watches Sonya put down the bottle and pick up the other one, taking two pills out and popping them in her mouth before she puts the bottle down and takes her own sip of water. She swallows with the practiced ease of someone who takes pills often.

Eva guesses her own scars aren’t the only ones that hurt tonight.

Their meds taken, Sonya makes sure the lids are securely back on before taking them back to the cupboard and putting them away.

She comes back to the table and sits down again before taking a large gulp of hot chocolate. Eva assumes it’s to get rid of the aftertaste from the pills that coats her tongue.

They sit in a comfortable silence for a while, feet occasionally nudging one another as they sip at their drinks. It’s not until after the pain killers have started to kick in, the pain starting to fade, that Eva starts crying again.

She’s not sure what sets it off this time – maybe it’s because she was thinking of the reasons _why_ she and the others have to take medication regularly; maybe it’s the old memories brought back to the surface and fresh in her mind from the nightmare – but whatever the reason is, what starts as a few sniffles turns into full-blown, body shaking sobs in a matter of seconds.

Sonya’s arms are around her just as fast, pulling Eva to her. The brunette buries her face against Sonya’s shoulder, arms wrapping around her waist. Her tears soak the other girl’s skin, her shoulder mostly bare save for the tank top she wore to bed – the strap for that quickly getting soaked through as well.

“Shhh, Evie, shh. It’s okay. You’re safe. They can’t hurt you anymore, can’t hurt us. You’re safe. We’re safe. Shh, it’s okay.” Sonya murmurs, one hand running through Eva’s hair and the other going up and down her back. She starts crying harder. Anguished, heartbroken sobs and she can’t tell what she’s crying about anymore. The nightmare; the pain of her scars; being tortured in a lab on a daily basis as some sort of sick experiment.

For their lost childhoods.

Eventually Eva cries herself out and sits up. Her face is wet and there’s snot smeared across her cheeks. Wiping her eyes, she notes that Sonya had pulled her chair closer to Eva’s, which explains why she hadn’t been half falling onto the floor like she would have been otherwise.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffs, glancing at Sonya’s shoulder. She’s not apologizing for the crying, she’s apologizing for the fact that there is a giant wet patch where her face was, the redhead’s shoulder is shiny under the lights.

Sonya waves a hand dismissively. “It’s just water and salt.”

“And snot.”

“And snot,” she agrees as she stands up and goes over to the counter, tearing off a few sheets of paper towel from the roll. Coming back, she offers them to Eva, who blows her nose and dries her face. Sonya takes them back and tosses them into the garbage can before washing her hands. “But it’s no big deal. I can change before we go back downstairs.” She says with a shrug as she sits back down at the table. “Feel better?”

Eva nods and takes a sip of her hot chocolate, which is more lukewarm then hot by this point, so she downs the rest of it, finishing it in three large gulps.

“Good.” Sonya downs the rest of her own hot chocolate and then brings their empty mugs and water glasses to the sink, rinsing out the mugs before putting everything in the dishwasher.

She moves her chair back to its previous position and then offers Eva her hand. She takes it and pulls herself to her feet. She flicks off the lights as they leave the kitchen and head upstairs.

Stopping at Eva and Ash’s shared bathroom, since it’s the closest to the stairs, Eva washes her face and Sonya washes off her shoulder before they head down the hall to Sonya’s room so that she can change into a clean shirt.

Finished upstairs, they make their way back to the basement. As she’s opening her mental doors to everyone else up again, Eva flops down into the pile of blankets and pillows. Sonya crawls in next to her, arms wrapping around her middle and pulling her close so that they’re pressed back to chest.

Eva snorts even as she closes her eyes. “So I guess I’m the little spoon tonight huh?”

“Mmhm.”

“Is Raiden usually the little spoon?” she asks, half teasing, half curious. Raiden is easily half a foot taller than the redhead.

Sonya huffs a laugh into her hair “Damn straight.” She hooks a foot around Eva’s calf and then works at tangling their legs together

Eva rolls her eyes behind closed lids even as she helps the process along. “Fuckin’ octopus.” she mutters affectionately.

“Go to sleep Evie.” Sonya murmurs. “I’ll keep the nightmares away.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Sonya's Mug](https://cdn-img-3.wanelo.com/p/f35/1fe/fe7/6f5bb691bb7c1caed5209c6/x354-q80.jpg)   
>  [Eva's Mug](http://rlv.zcache.co.nz/sun_moon_stars_on_dark_blue_mug-r08c3b5a3e25c49a6a13149d0db47484a_x7k2c_8byvr_324.jpg)


End file.
